"The fairies go visiting from house to house with sweet gifts"These four fairy revellers (plus fairy dog) first alit on the drawing board as little procession across a two page spread titled "Festive Fairy Fare", all about fairy kitchens, cookery and feasting. Along the top of the original layout are the pencilled words "The fairies go visiting from house to house with sweet gifts" , and to either side are roughed-in notes and sketched vignettes - a tray of individual cherry dumplings, gingerbread cut-outs, litle spoons. When creating a world on paper words speak to pictures, pictures to words, and multiply each other - a pencilled fairy cook hovers over a rectangle labelled "recipes" and the scribbled words "G-bread here". The next level of sketching provides more shape and details and the final painting brings them to life.
Wishing you all a very happy and blessed New Year, with feasting and merriment with friends and dear ones.
Happy new year to you! Hope you had a great one and that the coming months find you happy and well :) Thanks for the well wishes too, by the way. I've managed to shake the horrible flu but I think I've passed it on to everybody else I know. Ah winter, you gotta love it. Anyway, hope you're having a fantastic day!
ReplyDeleteA very happy new year to you and yours. I am eagerly awaiting my book, the post is ultra slow at the moment. Your illustration is as charming as ever, I look forward to seeing more of your fairy worlds in the new decade. x
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year, Francis! I very much enjoyed your posts on the Huron Peoples. I liked this one too. Insight into any creative process is always fascinating to me. I love the little details. I think the fairies found my house and left their sweet gifts, but my doctor won't be happy. I need some "fibre" fairies to visit! Or maybe not. =D
ReplyDeleteI am enjoying Grandmother's Tree very much and look forward to sharing it with my grandson when he is a bit older. Thank you for signing, I shall treasure it.
ReplyDeleteCould you be the child who cried when the real tree was carried off?
Thank you Valerie, and it was my big brothers (then 5 & 6)who stood at the window as described. Avril tells me that I was only two at the time. but the tradition continues,
ReplyDeleteI have just taken down my wobbly but noble 18-year old artificial tree.